


The Unmaking of a Mage

by Ghostinthehouse



Category: Emelan - Tamora Pierce, PIERCE Tamora - Works
Genre: Child Abuse, Dark, Drugs, Gen, Non-Graphic Violence
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-05-18
Updated: 2015-05-30
Packaged: 2018-03-31 04:02:34
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 975
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3963655
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ghostinthehouse/pseuds/Ghostinthehouse
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dragonsalt makes the unmage in Magic Steps dream. These are his dreams.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Hide and Seek

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: I am not Tamora Pierce and don't own any of this world.
> 
> This was inspired by a comment on Mark Does Stuff: http://markreads.net/reviews/2015/04/mark-reads-magic-steps-chapter-14/#IDComment965456335

_Now the mage could only hum nursery songs_ \- Magic Steps, Ch. 13

 

"...coming, ready or not!"

The toddler shuffled back into the shadows at Mama's call. Pale shadows, like the ones the sun cast through thin clouds, but they liked him. He could hide here.

Mama poked loudly into various places.

He giggled, then clapped his hands over his mouth. She couldn't find him! No one could find him.

Mama's arms scooped him up out of the shadows. "There you are, little duck. Found you! Shall we play again?"

"Mama sing!" he begged instead, safe in her arms.

She laughed and rocked him as he snuggled his head on her shoulder, then sang to him as she kneaded today's bread one-handed. "...bake me a cake as fast as you can. Pat it and prick it and mark it with D, and bake in the oven for my duck and me..."

He hummed along to the familiar tune, the vibration caught in his throat as if safety was a purring cat, just out of reach.


	2. Running Late

_People also use it to collapse distances..._ \- Magic Steps, Ch. 7

 

The boy bent double, panting. He was late for chores again and Mama was going to kill him this time. Hadn't she said as much when he dawdled last time, watching the shadows drift under the trees?

He looked down at his own shadow for a moment, thin as dappled shade, and then began to run again. The shadows tangled around his feet, and then he was skidding to a halt by the farmyard gate instead of halfway up the hill. Mama was nowhere in sight and if he hurried he might get his chores done enough to appease her before she came back.

He'd fed the chickens and moved on to the ducks when the stranger came around the corner from the house. He froze for a moment, bucket in hand, at the sight of the bloodied sword in the stranger's hand. Then he threw the bucket at the stranger's legs, turned, and ran.

There was a crash behind him, and cursing, and his legs hurt from his run home. The shadows helped again, hauling him across the farm quicker than he'd expected. It wasn't enough when another man appeared in front of him and knocked him flying with a fist.

As the boy fell, gasping through burning lungs, he heard the man say, "Well, well, a young mage. Enahar will be pleased."


	3. Lessons

_There was an emptiness in his eyes..._ \- Magic Steps, Ch. 5

 

They bound him with ropes and magic and loaded him on their ship. He felt shadows creep around him, touching the magic, eating it, _growing_ from eating it, and said nothing. The shadows also numbed the bruises on his cheek, the throbbing eye where the fist had felled him, and the aching grief as home fell out of sight.

He earned more bruises when he couldn't do the magic the pirates demanded of him. Trying wasn't enough, they wanted him to use it at will, as they told him. At first, it was only traveling from one end of the deck to the other. By the end of the voyage, they locked his food in a cabin and made him travel there to get it. Failure meant both hunger and a beating, and sleep curled around his new bruises, breathing the nursery songs his mother sang as he pulled the shadows closer for comfort.

When the ship docked, they bound him again with magic and locked him in a crate for transport. He whimpered as it thumped and rocked and finally settled to the ground.

"...for Enahar..."

"Enahar's off raiding a temple, with most of the fleet. What kept you?"

The magic binding him slid away, eaten by shadows. He gathered the shadows to him, willing them to know what he wanted, then traveled out of the crate. Crouched beside it, he looked round. He could travel where he could see or where he knew. There! A spot on the hill.

He stumbled on landing, and then ran, over the hill, looking for a place to hide, and found shadows against a tumble-down wall. He crept into them, wrapped them round him and waited, breathless, for them to come seeking.

This time, surely this time, no one could find him here....


	4. Capture

_Pirates done my legs..._ Magic Steps, Ch. 14

 

Three days of freedom before they caught him. Three days of snatched food and snatched sleep, wound and draped with shadows. He could see blue sky though, when he dared to look up. Blue sky and sunlight, beyond the shadows, but he can't reach them. Can't escape the shadows, anymore than he can escape the pirates.

The pirates, who have horses, and a trained mage. The mage tracked the food he stole. The shadows hid him but not his footprints. He ran but the horses ran faster. A rope of magic swept round him, bound him for a moment. Then the shadows ate it.

Hunger tore at him and he ran again, not heeding the curses behind him. Another rope swept round him, this one rough and real, tearing his skin. Something hit his head, and he fell, knocked out of his shadows into momentary sunlight, then bound tighter and carried inside. 

"If you didn't have unmagic," the man growled, "I'd get rid of you permanently. But we can use you. No more running." The man takes a knife and a saw from the table.

The boy bucks within his bonds, but the shadows can't eat real rope. His head hurts. The world spins and sways around him, and pulls away. A ray of sunlight breaks through the shutters, shadow-dust dancing in it, and his eyes cling to it. One last brightness in his life, as the knife comes down and he screams himself into darkness.


End file.
